The Case for 'Joey'

For those of you who don’t know, “Joey” is a song by Bob Dylan from his Mexican-Themed album “Desire” on which lies the great song “Romance in Durango”, the Cinco de Mayo song “Isis” and obviously, the revolutionary “Hurricane” of which the subject is the boxer, Rubin ‘The Hurricane’ Carter. Apart from these songs plus one of my personal favourites, “One More Cup of Coffee”, the great “Black Diamond Bay”, the start of the ‘divorce era’ song “Sara” and the confusing “Mozambique” - the song “Joey” seems to be universally hated for some odd reason.

One thing I found on social media, back when I had social media, was that I was the only one who actually enjoyed this song. Everyone else called it ‘awful’ or ‘just plain bad’ and even some Bob Dylan scholars online that I spoke to regularly stated that the song was not a great addition to “Desire”. Personally, I would have thought a similar thing to the scholar Clinton Heylin, who stated that it was “Mozambique” that was the weaker song, even though I think that song was supposed to be a bit of fun. “Joey” is classic Bob Dylan storytelling and I have never really understood why the listeners of Bob Dylan, Bobcat and Dylanologist alike, did not enjoy this song. I am here to make the case for “Joey” from “Desire” though and I will explain why it does not deserve the hatred it has received over the years.

Okay, first of all, I understand that it is weaker than the song “Hurricane” and the song “One More Cup of Coffee” and can’t really stand up against the song “Isis” but “Joey” is a great stand-alone song that fits well into the era of “Desire” which focused mainly on character-driven storylines.

Joey is an elusive figure who seems to be both personal and impersonal to us. We know where he was born but not when: “Born in Red Hook, Brooklyn, in the year of who knows when…” So, it starts off in a similar way to the song “Isis” in which we know when but not where instead:

“I married Isis on the fifth day of May / But I could not hold on to her very long. So I cut off my hair and I rode straight away / For the wild unknown country where I could not go wrong.”

I’m really not going to lie to you, but this fits better than various other songs on the album in which we don’t have a character-driven storyline such as “Black Diamond Bay” where we do not actually get a personal look at the character, we just know where they are:

“Up on the white veranda / She wears a necktie and a Panama hat / Her passport shows a face / From another time and place.”

I’m not putting down “Black Diamond Bay” down, I actually adore that song. But what I’m trying to say is that Bob Dylan’s writing of “Joey” does fit with the rest of the album.

Another thing is that the song sounds a lot like the other songs on the album. We have the strange and dark violin of Scarlet Rivera and the backing vocals of the beautiful Emmylou Harris. It sounds very similar to the song “One More Cup of Coffee” and obviously, “Mozambique”.

I understand that the song is about Joey Gallo who was a mobster, but we have to take it that Bob Dylan is telling a story that may not be entirely accurate but is actually just a story. He’s not trying to teach us anything, he is trying to tell us a story of a man who committed some crimes and then paid for them. Though it treats this act with some sympathy, it is still just a story and the ethical reasons for not enjoying the song simply makes no sense to me.

Be that as it may, “Joey” made it on to the list of the most popular Bob Dylan songs at number 74 and yet, all over the internet I still see that it is universally slated by both Dylan fans (the Bobcats) and Dylan scholars (Dylanologists) alike. Maybe you can tell me why this is.